Does Late Reproduction Extend the Life Span? Findings from European Royalty

摘要

ULTIMATE EXPLANATIONS for the physiology of human aging can be found only by studying the biological evolution of this physiology. Because lifetime reproductive success, not longevity, is selected for by natural selection, the links between reproductive events and mortality risks over the lifetime are the key to any evolutionary explanation of the human life span (Vaupel et al. 1998; Carey 2003; Carey and Tuljapurkar 2003).